Many families in Eastern England one pay cheque away from loosing their homes

HUNDREDS of thousands of families with children in the East of England could not pay their rent or mortgage for more than a month if they lost their job, new figures from Shelter reveal today (Monday, April 14). The YouGov survey of working adults who pay rent or a mortgage found that with little or no savings to fall back on, 45% of all working families in the East could be just one pay cheque away from losing their home. The research also found that in the east of the country, a quarter of all families face the nightmare scenario of immediately being unable to afford their home if they lost their income. More than 200,000 families (26%) said that if they lost their job this month and could not get another one straight away, they would not be able to make their next rent or mortgage payment from their savings. Kate Murray lives with her five year old daughter and disabled mother. She lost her job as a business manager with only three days’ notice when the company she worked for went bankrupt in October 2013. Kate said: “Before my employer went bankrupt they hadn’t been paying me properly for a while, so I’d started to fall behind on my mortgage. Then I got the letter through the door saying they wanted to take my house back. I was petrified. It’s not the best house but at least it’s our house. I thought, what am I going to do? How am I going to tell my daughter and my mum that we have to move out?” The latest government figures on savings mirror Shelter’s research, revealing that there are 15m working age adults in the UK with no savings at all. The charity’s findings showed that 3.8m working families from across the UK could not pay their rent or mortgage from their savings for more than a month if they lost their job, and 2.4m of these families have no savings to fall back on at all. Liz Clare, who is a helpline advisor at Shelter, said: “This research highlights the financial knife-edge that millions of us now find ourselves on – living month to month, pay cheque to pay cheque. Every day we see the proof that just one piece of bad luck, like a sudden job loss or illness, could tip any of us into a spiral that puts the family home at risk. “Sky-high housing costs and stagnating wages mean that saving is becoming a thing of the past for many people. Most of us simply don’t have enough money in the bank that we can rely on for long enough to get back on our feet. We need better government support to give families the short-term help they need to keep their homes if they fall on hard times. Campbell Robb, chief executive of Shelter, said: “Finding another job is hard enough, but without a stable place to live it’s almost impossible. No matter how hard ordinary families work, in today’s ‘knife-edge nation’ any drop in income can all too quickly put their home at serious risk. The government must make sure the safety net is strong enough to stop families falling through the gaps, and going through the tragedy of losing their homes.” Anyone who is worried about losing their home can contact Shelter for free, independent advice. Visit www.shelter.org.uk/advice or call the helpline on 0808 800 4444. Written bySINEAD HOLLAND http://www.hertsandessexobserver.co.uk/News/Bishops-Stortford/Families-in-the-East-of-England-one-pay-cheque-away-from-losing-homes-20140414055855.htm?utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed

Disabled people feeling the pain from workfare, the misery must end !

The number of claimants on sickness and disability benefits facing sanctions looks set to have doubled since December last year. 11,400 claims were slashed for failure to participate in work related activity or missing a meeting with the Jobcentre in the seven months between December 2012 and June 2013. This compares to 10,130 sanctions inflicted on claimant's of sickness or disability benefits in the previous 12 months. Sanctions have also soared for people on the mainstream unemployment benefit Jobseeker's Allowance, with the DWP boasting today that over half a million claims have been sanctioned between November 2012 and June 2013. Benefit sanctions lead to desperate poverty and are often handed out for the most trivial of reasons. A recent report by Citizens Advice warned that sanctions have led to people to attempting suicide, becoming homeless or resorting to begging or going through bins for food. This is all wonderful news according to Employment Minister Esther McVey who today proclaimed: "We always make the rules very clear – it’s only right that there is a penalty if people fail to play by them." The trouble is many do play by the rules as they are known but still find themselves sanctioned and in deprivation as a result including many disabled people. There are many reports of people being sanctioned for some incredible reasons and many are quite farcicle if we are honest. At the fantastic Johnny Void blog who i follow closely now on a recent post Johnny writes "Astonishingly many of those who have faced sanctions will have been plunged into poverty by charities who have been only too happy to sell out their service users for free workers and lucrative Work Programme contracts. Household names including the Salvation Army (@salvationarmyuk), YMCA (@YMCA_England) and The Conservation Volunteers (@tcvtweets) have all defended these vicious measures whilst employing countless unpaid workers under threat of sanctions on mandatory workfare schemes. Members of the Disability Works coalition have also got their snouts in the trough. Some of those on sickness or disability benefits who were sanctioned will have had benefits slashed due to 'compliance doubts' raised by charities such as SCOPE (@scope), Mencap (@mencap_charity) and MIND (@mindcharity). These so-called charities are Work Programme sub-contractors and have agreed to report back to the Jobcentre if a claimant misses a meeting or fails to attend 'work related activity'. Charities claiming to support disabled people are now complicit in destroying people's lives by snitching to the DWP that they aren't trying hard enough to find a job. This is despite these claimants having undergone a notorious Atos assessment which has agreed that they are unable to work at present. Appalling however sick and disabled claimants can still be sent to work unpaid on the Work Programme or face sanctions. They may be unfit for work, but they are fit for workfare in the eyes of the DWP. With yet more workfare planned, alongside ludicrous new 'conditionality' for unemployment benefits which expects people to spend 35 hours a week looking for non-existent jobs, the number of sanctions is likely to rise even further. The poverty now being socially engineered by the DWP is unprecedented in living memory in the UK. In one of the richest countries in the world people are now being left to go hungry or homeless with the collusion of charities - whilst the Labour Party boasts they will be even tougher on unemployed or disabled claimants than the Tories. It is down to claimants themselves - and all those who support a welfare state that does not abandon people to destitution for any reason - to fight back against this callous war on the poor. A good place to start is the Week of Action Against Workfare beginning on 2nd December, please spread the word, tweet and share: http://www.boycottworkfare.org/?p=3060 There is also a petition (I know) on 38 Degrees calling for all sanctions to be scrapped. Please sign/share etc: http://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/benefit-sanctions-must-be-stopped-without-exceptions-in-uk (It's not all doom and gloom. Disabled people fighting the closure of the Independent Living Fund today had a major victory in the courts.) Above pic via the Benefit Claimants Fightback group on facebook. Follow me on twitter @johnnyvoid For quotes and extracts with thanks to Johnny over at http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/11/06/benefit-sanction-rate-doubles-for-sick-and-disabled-claimantss/